The Effects of a Magical Offspring
by Chisis
Summary: "Kahlan, are you supposed to be glowing?" It was only the latest in a strange line of pregnancy symptoms, and Kahlan couldn't help but think, "I'm being driven insane by my daughter, who is the size of a sea guppy"


"Um, Kahlan…?"

'_That smell…'_Kahlan thought.

Richard stood in the doorway, leaning his body against the frame. The look on his face was quizzical, the very boyish of all his qualities.

She turned around in her chair as she continued to brush her hair. "Yes?"

"Not to sound worried, but…" he licked his bottom lip, "are you supposed to be glowing like that?"

Kahlan put down the brush and had to take a deep breath as she thought.

The dark of the night had finally come, and she was in her nightgown, readying to sleep, or at least to attempt to sleep. The past few weeks had given her plenty to think about, and she wasn't sure all of it was good.

Ever since she realized she was pregnant (the third day after their wedding night), sleep, her unborn child had decided, was not something she needed.

"Isn't she supposed to wait until a few months _after_ conception before she starts messing up with my sleep habits?" she had asked Richard after the second week had passed and she had experienced her third night of staring listlessly at the ceiling of their bedroom.

However, it was soon realized that nothing about this pregnancy was going to be normal

First, there had been her eye color changing. Richard had noticed first, though it would have been stranger if he hadn't noticed, considering what they were doing at the time when her eyes first changed.

"Kahlan, you're eyes changed," he had told her, once he rolled off her.

She knew that. He had told her since the first time they had ever made love that they changed black when she…released her hold on her power.

"No, I mean they changed a different color…and they are still that color."

Say _what_?

Indeed, when she went to look in the mirror, her eyes stared back…orange.

She blinked. Still orange. She blinked again. Orange, as orange as the fruit she ate. "That's…unusual, isn't it?" her voice seemed an octave higher than normal.

After careful examination by Zedd (once she and Richard had put their robes on), and after Cara had taken a good long look at her eyes and declared in her droll voice that "You look like a freak," it was concluded that it was the baby's fault.

"Zedd," Kahlan tried to keep her voice level, "The '_baby'_ is barely the size of my little finger," for emphasis, she held up her hand, stretching out the smallest one, "How is she suppose to be the affected me like this?"

"Do Confessors have unusual symptoms?" Zedd asked hopefully. "Anything that Dennee or your mother went through that you can remember?"

No! She had wanted to say, but stopped before the word left her. At least, it should be no, right? She racked her brain, trying to remember all the lessons, the teaching of Confessors. No one had ever, ever, mentioned their eye color changing. Maybe it happened to Dennee or maybe not. It wasn't exactly like they had been able to sit down and discuss much of anything that didn't have to do with Confessor duties.

"Kahlan, my dear, I'm afraid you are in new and strange waters." Zedd said, patting her hand. "Not in all of time has a Confessor not had her magic rebound back to her by a mate during consummation. " He shrugged. "For all I know, that could be why most Confessors have girls and not boys. Or maybe why a male Confessor's magic more easily consumes him. "

"But she is going to be alright, right Zedd?" Richard gripped her shoulder harder. "Nothing will harm her," It wasn't a so much a question but a statement, and as Kahlan looked at her husband's firm eyes, she loved him for it.

Zedd shook his head, his silvery hair dancing about him. "I don't think so." But then he stared at them, the twinkle so ever present in his eyes dimmed slightly, "Richard, Kahlan, you two have joined together two magical lines that have never once inhabited a single body before; Rahl blood and Confessor magic."

Richard and Kahlan looked at each other. Their hands sought each other, and they grasped it, trying to send love and comfort through entwined fingers.

"To say that this child is going to be powerful is an understatement. However, I am not able to even predict what kind of effect this magical cocktail will bring about. It might just be small things like changing Kahlan's eye color, or it might be something else,"

"Zedd, is there anything we can do?"

At this, Zedd's wide toothy grin appeared. "_Do_? I think you two have already _done_ everything you could" The emphasis of his words was not lost on them, and for a while Kahlan couldn't look Zedd in the eye. "Now, it's up to the Creator and the spirits,"

Avoiding Zedd's eye, Kahlan looked at Richard. "Well?" She didn't want to let on that she was afraid, more than afraid, and she certainly didn't want to fall apart because of this new uncontrollable force within her.

_Control_, She thought. _Something I always thought I had, only to find out how little I really do._ First, there was no control over her feelings for Richard, the bare grip she had over Con Dar, and now this.

Richard gave her hand a squeeze before dropping a slow kiss on her forehead. "It's just one more thing, Kahlan. We will get through this," he kissed her again, this time on her cheek, "Together."

But the stranger the symptoms got, the more biased Kahlan felt that 'together' was. Before, she had had a regular sense of smell and taste and sight. Now, it seemed as though their magical offspring had decided to heighten all of her senses to the point she could now smell Richard while he was in another room.

And now, apparently, she had decided Mommy needed to glow.

_I think my child is going to drive me insane_, she thought. "I'm glowing?"

Richard nodded his head, his bangs brushing against his eyes. "Yeah. A lot, actually." He came over to her, his scent assaulting her nose as he sat down behind her. "Can't you see it?"

She could, now that he pointed it out. She had thought something was off, but couldn't place her finger on what. Now, it was clear as day that the dark room had two sources of light, the small fire in the fireplace, and her.

Her skin was alight with a soft glow, almost like a firefly's; her hair had a glossy sheen to it that it never before contained. In all, it gave her an illuminated look, not less pretty, but it just seemed to make her beauty shine outward. She wasn't sure she liked it, and wondered what her white dress would add to the effect.

Richard, by contrast, looked much darker skinned then he actually was. Tanned by the sun, certainly, but next to her beaming it looked like a cloud was constantly cast over him about to rain.

"Great." Kahlan muttered. _Together_, she thought, growing more frustrated, _together. Together we can sniff each other out like we were dogs; together we will glow like candlelight. Oh, wait, that's just me._

Richard moved his big hands around her hips, placing them right around her midsection. She leaned back into him in response.

"Kahlan, I know this is hard on you," He started.

_What did he wash himself with? _She wondered. _Why does it smell so good?_

"And, if these past few weeks are any indication, our offspring isn't going to be letting up until she is born," He moved one hand and brushed aside her hair so that her neck and shoulder were bare. "All I can say," He kissed her shoulder, "…is that I'm here for you, always,"

"Always?" Kahlan felt her powers hum as he kissed closer to her neck.

"Always," he murmured, and kissed a spot right above her vein. She couldn't help it, she moaned.

"Tomorrow I will go down to Zedd and let him know that you are your own candlestick," she gave him a poke in his ribs with her elbow, "Ow. And maybe he will be able calm this newest symptom down a bit, until then…" he licked her earlobe.

"Yes?" she breathed.

"I need you to calm down," he whispered, "Remember when your eyes changed color, and how the more emotional you got the quicker they changed?"

She put down her brush and ran her fingers through his hair, grabbing ahold of a chunk of it and giving it a tug.

"I'm pregnant, Richard, are you telling me to not be emotional?"

She could feel him chuckle, and he kissed the corner of her mouth. "What I'm saying is, to let me help," he held her closer to him, that her backside was fully pressed up against his front.

She titled her head to look at him, the sense of him overwhelming. She could swear she could hear his heartbeat start to pump blood faster, sending that blood through his body, warming up his skin.

His eyes bore heat and gleamed into hers. Kahlan felt her tongue slip out of its confine to run along her lower lip. She watched with a certain thrill that never went away how his eyes dropped to follow the action.

_Spirits. I need him_, she thought as she roughly pulled his hair to bring his mouth to hers. He didn't seem to mind, meeting her with an equal enthusiasm.

He pulled her from her chair and led her to her bed, its wonderful sheets pulled back and felt cool on her glowing skin. He paused for a moment to throw sand over the fire. "We're not going to need that," he said by way of explanation.

She raised one eyebrow, but said nothing. _Let it go_, her mind chided, though she was certain that it was her libido taking, not her conscious. _Now is not the time for a fight_, the voice continued as he came over and sat on the bed and leaned in to kiss her neck as his hand fingered the straps of her nightgown, _now is a time for something else._

But there was one thing…

"You do realize that everything we do tonight is going to be…heightened," she said.

Two fingers hooked underneath her strap. "Yes, you told me,"

"So, how is this going to help me relax, if…"The strap slipped past her shoulder and those same two fingers that had done the deed now pushed her back onto the bed, "…if I can feel…"he began to kiss down her arm, "…if I can feel _everything_, only more?" she emphasized the last word.

He reached the soft skin by her elbow, and murmured into her skin, "Because, the greater the sensation, the greater the fall. The more you feel, the more you let go,"

_That made sense_, her mind said as her breath began to hitch_. Spirits don't stop_.

He kissed back up her arm to her collarbone, all the while murmuring in that soft yet heavy voice of his that told her she was having just as much effect on him as he was on her (and, though she would never tell him, she liked having that power over him).

"The more you let go, the more you release, and then you've have nothing in you to keep you awake,"

He blew cold air on her glowing, hot skin.

But she did have one last question before she could truly give in to him.

"What?" He glanced up at her, slightly annoyed that she stopped him.

"What did you shower with today, what soap?"

The look on his face showed he found the question odd, but was willing to humor her if only so that they could get back to doing what he wanted.

"Nothing," he said, "I ran out two days ago and forgot to get more, so I just used water,"

The way she grabbed him and rolled him over, attacking him with a renewed frenzy, was unexpected, to say the least.

'_What a weird pregnancy,'_ he thought.

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own any LOTS characters

Author's note: I am back, after a break from the world of writing. It happens, when you're computer breaks down and you must buy a new one. Such is life.

Anyways, to the story: It is a oneshot, and I'm not planning on making a whole "Kahlan deals with her pregnancy" multi –chapter at this time. For one, I just don't like having to deal with all the stupid emotions. Kahlan does best when she has conflict or when she has to fight for something, an introspective battle or a physical one. Dealing with pregnancy just doesn't offer that, and I hate how lovely dovey it gets in those fics.

Maybe if a good enough idea were to come to me, but for the moment, as with my other oneshots, my primary reason for writing this was to get back into the swing of writing and to concentrate on the 2 elements that I need to work on, dialogue and tone, among others.

Looking over this fic, the tone was a bit wonky. You can tell, especially the part with Zedd. I just wasn't certain what to do with the scene. Should it have gone darker, or more humorous? I even settled on ending on a humorous slant, mainly because the story was leaning more toward funny than it was anything else. After all, eye color changing isn't all that serious.

I do love the last bit when she jumps Richard, and it brought the one-shot to a nice close.


End file.
